MOTIVATION

EDD13:L2/WK6
MOTIVATION
What is motivation?
An internal state that arouses,, maintains and maintains
behavior (Graham &Weiner, 1996).
themamabee.wordpress.com
MOTIVATION – A MEANS TO
EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
COMPONENTS of MOTIVATION
Intrinsic –Internal, interest or curiosity. The
activity itself is rewarding.
Extrinsic – External, reward, grade, or to
avoid punishment. Person only cares what
will be gained.
• State vs Trait:
• State – temporary conditions or feelings (eg
hunger, thirst)
• Trait – stable, lasting (fixed) that motivates us to
behave in certain ways.
teachingandteachers.blogspot.com/2007/08/moti...
Theoretical approaches to Motivation
1. Behavioral approach:
This approach emphasizes on the use rewards and
incentives
It is based on the theory of operant conditioning
Behavior Outcome
REWARD or INCENTIVE
2. Cognitive approach:
our behaviour is determined by our cognitive
thinking. This is mainly intrinsic motivation.
Our behavior is initiated (or motivated) by:
o Attributions of successes and failures
o Expectations and valuing of a task
o Goals orientations and settings
-based on achievement motivation – the
motivation to succeed
3. Attribution theory: WHY did I fail my exam????
Theory is concerned our attribution for causes
for successes/failures: Ability, Effort, Luck, Task
difficulty.
a. Locus of Control – location of the cause
internal/external to the learner
b. Stability – whether the cause stays the same or
change
c. Responsibility – whether learner can control
the cause
Internal locus of control – those who attribute their
success or failure to their own behavior
External locus of control –those who attribute their success
or failure to luck or task difficulty
4. Expectancy x Value theories:
The emphasis of these theories is that there is a product
of both:
1. Person‟s expectations for success:
“If I try hard, can I succeed?” (Expectation)
AND
2. Their valuing of the goal:
“If I succeed, will the outcome be valuable or
rewarding to me?” (Value)
For example:
“If I believe I have a good chance of winning the
award for the best student in Education at the end
of my two years at FCAE (high expectation)”,
and
“If winning the award is very important to me
(high value),
then
Motivation should be strong
5. Humanistic approach:
People are good by nature; we are only “bad” and
“evil” when our needs are not met.
- Implications for teaching in the classroom??
A person‟s needs for self-actualization
People are continuously motivated by to fulfill their
potentials and inner needs.
Needs are structured in a hierarchy.
6. SOCIO-CULTURAL APPROACH
Emphasizes individuals‟ participation in
communities of practice.
People engage in activities to maintain identities
and interpersonal relations within community.
People are only motivated when an identity is
formed: that is, a collective whole.
- Included in a group of friends
- Accepted member of the class
- Part of the „in-group‟
- Identified/recognized as a valuable member of the
group
Factors that influence students’ perceptions of
their ability
1. Teachers‟ expectations and how these are
communicated (self-fulfilling prophecy
Labelling – students become what you „label‟ them to be
1. Organisation of the classroom
2. Assessment techniques
3. ethos of the school/classroom
DEMOTIVATED STUDENTS
Some children are easily distracted with very
low attention span
Some recent research shows that many
students do poorly on assignments or in
participation because they do not
understand what to do or why they should
do it. Students who are uncertain about
what to do will seldom perform well.
Suppressing students’ needs -through teaching,
learning activities..
PASSIVE LEARNERS…suppressing
students’ need to discover and construct
own knowledge
• TEXT-BOOK TEACHER!
OVERTASKING STUDENTS –
frustrated students
over-assessing students…
More concerned about covering the content
rather than real learning ….mismatch
between teacher’s teachers teaching rate
and students learning rate
LACK OF MOTIVATION -TRUANCY
LEARNING NOT CONNECTING TO
REALITY
Some Ideas for Motivating Students
Robert Harris
Version Date: March 2, 1991
• 1. Explain. Teachers should spend more time
explaining why we teach what we do, and why
the topic or approach or activity is important and
interesting and worthwhile. In the process, some
of the teacher's enthusiasm will be transmitted to
the students, who will be more likely to become
interested. Similarly, teachers should spend
more time explaining exactly what is expected
on assignments or activities. Students who are
uncertain about what to do will seldom perform
well.
2. Reward. Students who do not yet have powerful intrinsic motivation to learn
can be helped by extrinsic motivators in the form of rewards. Rather than
criticizing unwanted behavior or answers, reward correct behavior and answers.
Remember that adults and children alike continue or repeat behavior that is
rewarded. The rewards can (and should) be small and configured to the level of
the students. Small children can be given a balloon, a piece of gum, or a set of
crayons. Even at the college level, many professors at various colleges have
given books, lunches, certificates, exemptions from final exams, verbal praise,
and so on for good performance. Even something as apparently "childish" as a
"Good Job!" stamp or sticker can encourage students to perform at higher levels.
And the important point is that extrinsic motivators can, over a brief period of time,
produce intrinsic motivation. Everyone likes the feeling of accomplishment and
recognition; rewards for good work produce those good feelings.
3. Care. Students respond with interest and motivation to teachers who
appear to be human and caring. Teachers can help produce these feelings by
sharing parts of themselves with students, especially little stories of problems
and mistakes they made, either as children or even recently. Such
personalizing of the student/teacher relationship helps students see teachers
as approachable human beings and not as aloof authority figures. Young
people are also quite insecure, and they secretly welcome the admission by
adults that insecurity and error are common to everyone. Students will attend
to an adult who appears to be a "real person," who had problems as a youth
(or more recently) and survived them.
It is also a good idea to be approachable personally. Show that you care
about your students by asking about their concerns and goals. What do they
plan to do in the future? What things do they like? Such a teacher will be
trusted and respected more than one who is all business.
4. Have students participate. One of the major keys to motivation is the active
involvement of students in their own learning. Standing in front of them and
lecturing to them (at them?) is thus a relatively poor method of teaching. It is
better to get students involved in activities, group problem solving exercises,
helping to decide what to do and the best way to do it, helping the teacher,
working with each other, or in some other way getting physically involved in the
lesson. A lesson about nature, for example, would be more effective walking
outdoors than looking at pictures
Students love to be needed (just like adults!). By choosing several students to
help the teacher (take roll, grade objective exams, research bibliographies or
biographies of important persons, chair discussion groups, rearrange chairs,
change the overhead transparencies, hold up pictures, pass out papers or
exams) students' self esteem is boosted and consequently their motivation is
increased. Older students will also see themselves as necessary, integral, and
contributing parts of the learning process through participation like this. Use
every opportunity to have students help you. Assign them homework that
involves helping you ("I need some magazine illustrations of the emphasis on
materialism for next week; would someone like to find one for me?").
5. Teach Inductively. It has been said that presenting conclusions first and then
providing examples robs students of the joy of discovery. Why not present some
examples first and ask students to make sense of them, to generalize about
them, to draw the conclusions themselves? By beginning with the examples,
evidence, stories, and so forth and arriving at conclusions later, you can maintain
interest and increase motivation, as well as teach the skills of analysis and
synthesis. Remember that the parable method of making a point has some
significant historical precedent.
6. Satisfy students' needs. Attending to need satisfaction is a primary method
of keeping students interested and happy. Students' basic needs have been
identified as survival, love, power, fun, and freedom. Attending to the need for
power could be as simple as allowing students to choose from among two or
three things to do--two or three paper topics, two or three activities, choosing
between writing an extra paper and taking the final exam, etc. Many students
have a need to have fun in active ways--in other words, they need to be noisy
and excited. Rather than always avoiding or suppressing these needs, design
an educational activity that fulfills them.
Students will be much more committed to a learning activity that has value for
them, that they can see as meeting their needs, either long term or short term.
They will, in fact, put up with substantial immediate unpleasantness and do an
amazing amount of hard work if they are convinced that what they are learning
ultimately meets their needs.
7. Make learning visual. Even before young people were reared in a video
environment, it was recognized that memory is often connected to visual images.
In the middle ages people who memorized the Bible or Homer would sometimes
walk around inside a cathedral and mentally attach certain passages to objects
inside, so that remembering the image of a column or statue would provide the
needed stimulus to remember the next hundred lines of text. Similarly, we can
provide better learning by attaching images to the ideas we want to convey. Use
drawings, diagrams, pictures, charts, graphs, bulleted lists, even three-
dimensional objects you can bring to class to help students anchor the idea to an
image.
It is very helpful to begin a class session or a series of classes with a conceptual
diagram of the relationship of all the components in the class so that at a glance
students can apprehend a context for all the learning they will be doing. This will
enable them to develop a mental framework or filing system that will help them to
learn better and remember more.
Precipitation
..
Balanced Diet
SCARCITY /
CHOICE/OPPORTUNITY COST
E. Facial Expressions
In order to develop a rapport with your students it is
always good to remember to smile.
Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits:
• Happiness
• Friendliness
• Warmth
• Liking
• Affiliation
8. Use positive emotions to enhance learning and motivation. Strong and
lasting memory is connected with the emotional state and experience of the
learner. That is, people remember better when the learning is accompanied by
strong emotions. If you can make something fun, exciting, happy, loving, or
perhaps even a bit frightening, students will learn more readily and the learning
will last much longer. Emotions can be created by classroom attitudes, by doing
something unexpected or outrageous, by praise, and by many other means.
One size does not fit all
Helping students to motivate themselves is very difficult because there is no
panacea; one size does not fit all, and matching ideas and approaches to
individual students is a key skill for teaching staff generally and for project
supervisors in particular. Further, in attempting to stimulate intrinsic motivation
teaching staff can do no more than serve as a catalyst: individual students
eventually must take responsibility for their own motivation. Each of the bundles
in this section, therefore, comes with a "health warning": it will not work for
everyone.
References
How can I motivate my students to
learn?
Allow children to be involved in
different activities?
What type of learning environment will allow
children to learn?
Some children are easily distracted with very
low attention span
Compose a POEM based on this
picture
teachingandteachers.blogspot.com/2007/08/moti...
What will motivate children to
learn?